


The Pin's Head

by soundofez



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Morbid, Not Happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 16:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundofez/pseuds/soundofez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels right and it feels wrong and the worlds spin round and round.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken Promises

_Will,_

_I know I promised you that I'd be happy in my world. I know I promised you that when I got married, I wouldn't compare the two of us. I'm sorry, Will. I can't keep those promises. I don't belong in my world anymore._

_For one thing, no one understands me here in St. Sophia's. I've been studying the alethiometer for seven years_ — _has it been seven years already?_ — _and blending in fairly well until the first Midsummer's Day, when they decided to hold a festival that lasted from morning to evening. Of course I went to the Botanic Garden anyway, but they tried to drag me back into the fair. I couldn't explain why I had to stay in the Garden, of course, since they wouldn't believe me.  
_

_And then, Will, on my birthday, Serafina Pekkala and Iorek Byrnison both came to visit me. Serafina came quietly and left quietly, but people still noticed and the rumor spread that I was a witch. And of course, Iorek being Iorek, he came in right through the classroom door and spoke to me and left right away. Once people started thinking that I was a witch, one of the girls distracted me and her dæmon led Pan away, and so it got out that I was a witch (which we both know isn't really true, just sort of half-true)._

_Will, I'm not happy in my world. I don't think it is my world anymore. Pan seems sadder by the day, and so am I. I've been wondering, maybe I should have gone with you to your world. But ten years... it really is too short, isn't it?_

_But, I'm getting better at the alethiometer every day. One day, I'm going to ask if we will ever meet each other before we die. I can only hope that I won't grow old before that happens._

_Oh, Will... I hope we see each other again before we die. I'm sorry I broke our promises, but at least... at least I kept the most important one, didn't I?_

* * *

_Lyra,_

_I know I promised you that I'd be happy in my world. I know I promised you that when I got married, I wouldn't compare the two of us. I'm sorry, Lyra. I can't keep those promises. I don't belong in my world anymore._

_I'm a medical student, now, but it's so strange, because I've not lost the feel for the knife, though it's been broken for_ — _has it already been so long?_ — _seven years now, and so I know, whenever I have to make a diagnosis, what's wrong, but I have to pretend to mess up sometimes, since it's not right that I should know what's wrong but not why it's wrong. It will be so much easier once I am qualified, though I'll still have to be able to explain it to myself so I can explain it to my patients._

_My mother passed away a year ago, on Midsummer's Day, when I was in the Botanic Garden with you. Don't blame yourself, it wasn't your fault. Mother never really got better. Mrs. Cooper, the old lady who had taken care of her, helped her for a while, but gradually she kept getting worse while I was wandering around the worlds with you, since she thought that I'd left her, too. I came back, of course, and she was happy to see me, but she never really truly got better._

_She was happy when I told her that I'd seen Dad, and that he was never unfaithful to her, but of course, I had to tell her that he'd died, as well. That broke her more than anything else, I suppose. Still, I told her a bit about the exit from the world of the dead, and she'd smiled and told me that she was glad. I suppose Gracious Wings met her with a smile. I wonder, does Gracious Wings have more beauty, now that she does not have to feed on the worst deeds of the ghosts? But that will not matter until we, you and I, Lyra, die._

_Oh, Lyra... I hope we see each other again before we die. I'm sorry I broke our promises, but at least I kept the most important one, right?_


	2. the knife's edge

It is wrong.

He knows it, but he cannot bring himself to stop. There is something simply captivating about knives that he cannot define, something that calls to him.

Something that begs him to use them.

On himself.

Sometimes he catches himself, pulls the knife away before he bleeds, and curses himself for being so weak as to retreat to pain from the memories.

Sometimes he draws the knife across the air, searching absently for that snag that would let him rip the air itself. Even after all these years, he still remembers the feel of Lyra's world.

And then the knife catches on something and he opens his eyes and he is bleeding.

That is how it usually ends.

He cannot bring himself to care.

Mary knows. She knows what he is doing to himself, but she is too busy to help him. He had moved into his own flat a long time ago, since he graduated early and went into medical school and became the renowned doctor that he is now. But he hasn't been able to keep this addiction to pain completely out of sight of the public, and so his clientele is waning even though he knows his ability is not.

Dust help him, but he misses Lyra.

He wonders what her life is like and how she lives and if she loves someone else now. Just the idea of it makes him want to cut his way into her world, specters be damned, and take her all for himself and love her forever.

But the knife is broken, so he can't.

He regrets ever breaking that knife. He regrets throwing it away even more, because he thinks he could manage with just its tip.

He wants Lyra. He wants her in his life again. He doesn't think he'll ever stop. No woman of his world can ever compare to her innocence, her passion.

He wants her.

In the darkness of his flat, Kirjava kills a rat.


	3. the wheel's rim

It feels right.

She never thought she would love another when she and Will parted forever. She should have known better.

She still loves him, of course, but she cannot bring herself to feel guilty that she has a lover right here with her as Will is not, worshiping her body and making her forget the past.

This man's name is also Will.

He goes by Will, but that doesn't stop her from calling him William to keep him apart from Will. He doesn't know about her past, about the young twelve-year-old Will in his heart. She doesn't think he ever will.

But there is too much passion in her for her to abandon love. She realised that in the years following Will's departure.

At first she felt guilty for kissing another boy, but she consoled herself with the promise they made to never compare anyone else to one another. Then she accepted it with resignation.

Now she loves it.

She has had many lovers now, but William has lasted the longest. She thinks she might eventually settle down with him, with this man that is calm and dark enough to almost pass as Will.

He is not Will.

She knows this only too well every time she looks at his hands and sees them whole and unmarked, every time she feels them on her chest.

He is not Will, and he never will be.

She presses herself to her lover and forgets the past.

Under the bed, Pantalaimon disregards his lover.


	4. the meaning of innocence

If there is any part of Lyra that is still pure, she thinks it would be in Pan, not in her.

Pan has never really accepted Kirjava's absence, and it shows in the way he spurns intimacy with Lyra's lovers' daemons. Then again, Pan is Lyra's soul, and deep down Lyra hasn't left Will in her past at all.

William keeps his distance most of the time, cool and shy and unobtrusive, with an unsettling likeness (and yet complete unlikeness) to Will. He is very rarely out of character, and that makes it remember that he is not Will, which in turn gives Lyra grief whenever she forgets and he acts just a little different and reminds her again.

Like when he touches Pan.

He feels so like Will, but when he touches Pan she can't help but feel the difference, the dissonance.

He is so good to her, so good about keeping his distance, and yet whenever he does anything to get closer, she flinches away from him. It hurts him. Even she can see that, even though he doesn't say anything. Just like Will.


End file.
